Guild Wars 2

Helseth has commented on this reddit thread, see below quote.

LordHelseth:
From my perspective mesmer will be completely unplayable provided that these notes are all the meaningful changes. Similiar to how warrior is in its current state right now, I can’t find a single justified reason to play shatter mesmer in pvp over thief, rev or necro.
Bunker mes is completely dead with quickness rez and alacrity nerf sso shatter is our onl hope. From what I’m theorycrafting shatter will be n such a pitiful state that it wont even be worth playing casually, might aswell reroll thief
It seems to me that arenanet is killing the chrono bunker mesmer because they don’t want ANY iteration of this build in pvp but my question then is what build do they want us to have? Shatter? Shatter was already not viable and inferior to thief/dh/rev before the patch. So if the bunker archetype is dead and shatter is unviable mesmer will have no spot whatsoever, which I feel might be intended by the devs because they simple have no idea how to balance it. Frankly, I don’t either. Portal is completely broken and so is moa and the effect of continum split along with those effects so it’s really hard to be viable without being mandatory.
Still sad that the class I’ve mained for so long is likely completely dead for half a year.

Link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/416x1z/as_a_mesmer_main_for_years_i_am_not_too_fussed/

Don’t care really. Thats generally my perferred method of balancing slaughtering an op class/build and driving off the FOTM trash for a development cycle or so and let some other classes/builds see the light of day. Its almost impossible to change classes/builds from OP to just run of the mills strong in one iteration. Smash away i say. Mesmer players are no more special then anyone else. Lots of classes/builds have been “unplayable” for extremely long periods of time. No one cares until it’s there perferred class that might be toward the bottom for a bit.

brannigan.9831:

Don’t care really. Thats generally my perferred method of balancing slaughtering an op class/build and driving off the FOTM trash for a development cycle or so and let some other classes/builds see the light of day. Its almost impossible to change classes/builds from OP to just run of the mills strong in one iteration. Smash away i say. Mesmer players are no more special then anyone else. Lots of classes/builds have been “unplayable” for extremely long periods of time.

Thank god you’re not a dev, I wouldn’t want to be part of your game, that,s for sure.
And Mesmer has been one of these classes who was absolutely not competitive and undesired for a very long time, or have you forgotten that?

OP: I tend to lean toward Helseth’s opinion, but I still have this teeny teeny sliver of faith that Anet are reserving a good surprise for us.

brannigan.9831:

Don’t care really. Thats generally my perferred method of balancing slaughtering an op class/build and driving off the FOTM trash for a development cycle or so and let some other classes/builds see the light of day. Its almost impossible to change classes/builds from OP to just run of the mills strong in one iteration. Smash away i say. Mesmer players are no more special then anyone else. Lots of classes/builds have been “unplayable” for extremely long periods of time.

ironic coming from a player (based on you previously posted replies), Guardians, Warriors, and Thieves all had longer stay in meta than Mesmers. Perhaps all three of your main toons" wasnt part of the bunker meta and you direct your hate at Mesmers.

What comes around goes around, I guess enjoy your thief renaissance, what goes up will surely come down, perhaps even sooner than others.

Holy kitten, I don’t remember making this thread.

I’m definitely really hoping that bunker mesmer does in fact die. It is a build that takes minimal skill to play and allowed many people to cheese season 1 of the league.

That said, we don’t know all the changes, so everyone complaining about one class being OP or another being UP is premature.

style.6173:

I’m definitely really hoping that bunker mesmer does in fact die. It is a build that takes minimal skill to play and allowed many people to cheese season 1 of the league.

That said, we don’t know all the changes, so everyone complaining about one class being OP or another being UP is premature.

Even mesmer community is hoping that chronobunker dies, it’s clearly not why we signed up as main mesmers… and it deserves to go.
But I’d like to be reassured that we’ll be given an alternative other than dropping off of meta in previous warrior/thief position, and that, from what I’ve seen, is not certain at all

Anyone that isn’t blinding themselves with hope will realise this is true. Unless the bunker mesmer can retain some support while gaining more damage and control abilities, such as though distraction mantra, gravity well, AoE daze on diversion, etc. Shatter mesmer will be the only build that has a hope of remaining viable. Unfortunately for focusing on control, there is a lot of stability around. Reapers may be effective enough at removing it, but a reaper and mesmer combination would be weaker than a reaper and thief combination, so unless teams move away from 3 support-capable classes to 2, and 3 offensive builds instead, there isn’t much point to mesmer outside of trying desperately to make it work.

While shatter mesmer still brings portal, which is a valuable asset, it needs to be able to bring something to the fight it is in. Shatter mesmer will be at the bottom of the "counter pressure chain." Thieves will shut it down again, and will require counter pressuring to protect the mesmer by another thief, an engi, necro or revenant, each of which can counter pressure each other to protect an ally.

Even if the meta goes back toward "burst" over high sustained damage, shatter mesmer would need a lot of stealth, running, and kiting to be viable. This would mean needing to run PU again, which means dropping an important line, losing damage and utility. If it doesn’t have enough burst, it can’t stand against reapers corrupting their boons every 3rd auto attack, unless they build for condition cleanse as well, which results in losing even more of their damage specialisation, perhaps even reverting to the old shatter mesmer variant of Dueling/Inspiration/Chaos. Furthermore, it would need to rely on a lot of support, and ele has been nerfed, and energy sigil nerf is equates to a clone lost every 10s.

There is a chance the Duel/Insp/Chaos build would have enough damage given the nerf to tank amulets, but new amulets have been added with defensive stats which, combined with the survival abilities brought with the elite specs and revenant, probably will be enough to shrug off such a build.

Roaming-wise, shatter mesmer can’t. Not alone. Being caught off point by a necro, thief or revenant is game over. It needs to be baby-sat, which means it can’t reliably +1. Any fight a mesmer needs to rotate to would have to be a +2 so the mesmer can make it there - unless it used portal of course.

In the end, a necro or revenant would likely just be a better pick. Not a thief, because thieves will be in regardless!

Impact.2780:

Anyone that isn’t blinding themselves with hope will realise this is true. Unless the bunker mesmer can retain some support while gaining more damage and control abilities, such as though distraction mantra, gravity well, AoE daze on diversion, etc. Shatter mesmer will be the only build that has a hope of remaining viable.

And there’s probably a REALLY high chance that the newly buffed thieves will simply keep shatter mesmer out of the game because they basically hardcounter them. We’ve already had this meta.

It’s more the power creep that killed chrono-shatter. The nerfs alone are not terrible — most chrono-shatter builds will see a few seconds extra on cooldowns due to alacrity going from -40% CDR to -25% CDR (which is how the 66% → 33% increased recharge speed works). The precog nerf won’t really affect anything since chrono-shatter can take decoy.

More importantly, the relative lethality of chrono-shatters will probably still be pretty good, mostly because all the bunkers are getting nerfs. So I think chrono-shatter will still be able to quickly generate downs in +1 fights.

The main problem is that chrono-shatter was already weak to thief, and thief is getting buffed even more. So you might as well take a thief, which is good at generating downs in +1s and will beat chrono-shatter in a fight. I.E. we’re going back to a meta where thief pushes the other roamers out.

The biggest buff that gave thief an edge over shatter is removing the aftercast on BP — there’s now next to nothing the mesmer can do to prevent the thief from BP+Bounding to stealth. The passive buffs to autoattack damage makes sense in a bunker meta, but will be absolutely crazy in the new meta.

Bunker mesmer absolutely needed to go. But removing quickness/slow res-stomps and removing the bunker amulets was enough to take bunker mesmer out. But nerfing bunkers alone is enough to put thieves back in the meta. We really don’t need the extra damage, too.

TLDR: I’m overall OK with the mesmer nerfs, and super happy that bunker mesmer is getting gutted. But based on the current list of changes, passive buffs to thief dmg is just going to give thief an even easier win against all of the other roaming classes.

I would have preferred to just see heavy nerfing to bunkers (including bunker mesmer), removal of celestial/soldier/sentinel amulets, some nerf to scrapper sustain, and then see how the meta shakes out before buffing thief damage.

“Shatter was already not viable and inferior to thief/dh/rev before the patch. So if the bunker archetype is dead and shatter is unviable mesmer will have no spot whatsoever, which I feel might be intended by the devs because they simple have no idea how to balance it. Frankly, I don’t either. Portal is completely broken and so is moa and the effect of continum split along with those effects so it’s really hard to be viable without being mandatory.
Still sad that the class I’ve mained for so long is likely completely dead for half a year.”

This is exactly right and I’m glad Helseth said this. There are aspects of mesmer that are just completely broken and he named them. Portal is the strongest utility in the game and always has been. The elites can be game deciders or a way to safely finish anyone off with a moa stealth opener and then snowball the map.

So how is shatter mesmer currently balanced? By being weak outside of those things. Too weak to be used at the moment. The truth is it was too weak before the expansion too but not weak enough that you couldn’t take it and reap the benefits of moa and portal. If the enemy team had anything that could take advantage of the fragility of the mesmer (burn guard, thief, etc) and do it well then the mesmer would get shut down and the 2 powerful utilities it brought wouldn’t even be used.

It’s a tough thing to say but it would probably be healthier for the game if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

Anet dont balance games, they switch one meta for another, and when that meta becomes played by almost everyone they change again, this time by Helseth words looks like it is chrono/mesmer staying behind, putting thief back in action, reason they want to do more periodical changes in the future, so players can swap from X to Y then to Z more.
The faster players realize what Anet makes “super efective”, better performance they’ll have.

But if game could had its skills normalized has QoL, make more roles and classes avaliable on higher play, that would not hurt either and might put esport on better place.

sorry about bad english.

Phantaram.4816:

“Shatter was already not viable and inferior to thief/dh/rev before the patch. So if the bunker archetype is dead and shatter is unviable mesmer will have no spot whatsoever, which I feel might be intended by the devs because they simple have no idea how to balance it. Frankly, I don’t either. Portal is completely broken and so is moa and the effect of continum split along with those effects so it’s really hard to be viable without being mandatory.
Still sad that the class I’ve mained for so long is likely completely dead for half a year.”

This is exactly right and I’m glad Helseth said this. There are aspects of mesmer that are just completely broken and he named them. Portal is the strongest utility in the game and always has been. The elites can be game deciders or a way to safely finish anyone off with a moa stealth opener and then snowball the map.

So how is shatter mesmer currently balanced? By being weak outside of those things.

It’s a tough thing to say but the game would probably be healthier if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

Yo Phantaram, are you gonna do a post/video on your thoughts on the ele /celestial changes? I’d be really interested what one of the best ele players thinks about that.

Whenever they nerf Mesmers it is always a total overkill, no other class gets this sort of treatment consistently. Fact.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Yo Phantaram, are you gonna do a post/video on your thoughts on the ele /celestial changes? I’d be really interested what one of the best ele players thinks about that.

Commented about it on my stream a lot today. I think ele is most likely a dead class for now also. It’ll be interesting to see how Anet attempts to make ele viable without celestial.

Vague Memory.2817:

Whenever they nerf Mesmers it is always a total overkill, no other class gets this sort of treatment consistently. Fact.

Like many others you seem to have forgot that they tactically nuked elementalists into the ground after launch, so much that they were COMPLETELY unplayable in pvp for a whole year. Like, people would harrass and flame you if you even had the guts to show up with an ele in unranked.

Phantaram.4816:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Yo Phantaram, are you gonna do a post/video on your thoughts on the ele /celestial changes? I’d be really interested what one of the best ele players thinks about that.

Commented about it on my stream a lot today. I think ele is most likely a dead class for now also. It’ll be interesting to see how Anet attempts to make ele viable without celestial.

Oh cool, gonna check out that video then. Sad day for eles

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Vague Memory.2817:

Whenever they nerf Mesmers it is always a total overkill, no other class gets this sort of treatment consistently. Fact.

Like many others you seem to have forgot that they tactically nuked elementalists into the ground after launch, so much that they were COMPLETELY unplayable in pvp for a whole year. Like, people would harrass and flame you if you even had the guts to show up with an ele in unranked.

Unplayable for 1 year, then totally being a required class if not the best in meta at the same time for 2+ years. Sorry but Mesmer has never enjoy that kind of journey. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

It’s only a preview of the upcoming changes. One cannot say what will or will not be viable yet.

Pepsi.8907:

But I’d like to be reassured that we’ll be given an alternative other than dropping off of meta in previous warrior/thief position, and that, from what I’ve seen, is not certain at all

5% scepter speed increase…
You welcome ^^

DeWolfe.2174:

It’s only a preview of the upcoming changes. One cannot say what will or will not be viable yet.

100% of the time that Anet “previewed” balance changes those “previews” turned out to be 100% of the changes.

It would be foolish to think that this time it’s gonna be any different.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Vague Memory.2817:

Whenever they nerf Mesmers it is always a total overkill, no other class gets this sort of treatment consistently. Fact.

Like many others you seem to have forgot that they tactically nuked elementalists into the ground after launch, so much that they were COMPLETELY unplayable in pvp for a whole year. Like, people would harrass and flame you if you even had the guts to show up with an ele in unranked.

I said consistently, meaning not just one occasion. Ele has been in a good place for a very long time now. Chron was the best thing that has happened to Mes for a long time, but it has been progressively nerfed since it’s arrival along with some core traits.

Take away portal and moa and you might as well homogenize all the classes till they have nothing unique left about them. Classes need to have distinct abilities to set them apart. Unless people want thief and Mesmer to be identical and interchangeable which is just boring imo.

“..mesmer will having some defense lowered and offense lowered. However they are also receiving a lot buffs we’re not touching on today…”

I can appreciate he doesn’t want his main made non viable. I can also appreciate he has said this a lot,…yet here he still is. I can also appreciate he has put forth a lot suggestions that were death knell of others.

He himself described chronomancer at first has being weak. He all then went on to see it was far from it. He himself agreed mesmer had been made easy mode and currently required the lowest skill ceiling in mesmer history.

I am confident if they changed the colour of the butterflies from purple to blue, someone would complain mesmer is not viable now.

Phantaram.4816:

It’s a tough thing to say but it would probably be healthier for the game if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

thanks to your insensitive comment about Mesmer, I’m glad the upcoming patch will hit ele pretty hard as well. I guess both community can suffer together. The only difference is ele had the journey to be part of meta for a very long time, that’s not something mesmer class can say.

Chrono is indeed the best thing that ever happened to mesmer, it should of been there from game launch. The mesmer class is meant to fulfill a control/denial role which in the beginning it was not doing.

aeolus nailed it – skills/traits go from 0-100 or 100 -0. They are more likely to change the skill description to “working as intended” than to tweak overnerfed skills.

Regardless of the outcome, I will continue to play mesmer. I did thoroughly enjoy this period of time though making other classes squeal and reroll, I especially enjoyed the numerous posts of how ele/guard/wars are the “victims and have always been treated unfairly” lol.

Rome.7124:

Helseth has commented on this reddit thread, see below quote.

LordHelseth:
From my perspective mesmer will be completely unplayable provided that these notes are all the meaningful changes. Similiar to how warrior is in its current state right now, I can’t find a single justified reason to play shatter mesmer in pvp over thief, rev or necro.
Bunker mes is completely dead with quickness rez and alacrity nerf sso shatter is our onl hope. From what I’m theorycrafting shatter will be n such a pitiful state that it wont even be worth playing casually, might aswell reroll thief
It seems to me that arenanet is killing the chrono bunker mesmer because they don’t want ANY iteration of this build in pvp but my question then is what build do they want us to have? Shatter?

One thing that would be great for anet to do is publicize their aims for each class and where they see them so we can at least evaluate the balance changes against their aims.

Good players always find a way how make their classes viable. Suckers just pick new meta class. Man up Helseth and l2p your class under hard conditions.

morrolan.9608:

One thing that would be great for anet to do is publicize their aims for each class and where they see them so we can at least evaluate the balance changes against their aims.

They’re using the spray and pray tactic.

I disagree that the bunkmes is dead. Why would it be? Sure you cant quickness stomp or res, but you can still spam boons and stuns like a MF. And you still have portal. I am worried about the thief buffs however…

There is potential for a mesmer to play a bit like a necro, except with daze instead of fear, slow instead of chill, boon removal instead of corrupt, and portal. To keep up with the boon removal it’d need illusions for cd reduction, and scepter for the clone generation. Scepter and illusions are condi-focused, and you can take defensive stats easier with condi damage as well. Scepter also provides a block. It’d need control, so as much cc as it can which means diversion hitting 5 targets, mantra of distraction and gravity well. Shield because it has a block and cc, staff because of the leap in ethereal fields for survival, low cd clone generation, and of course chaos storm for cc. Chrono provides a trait to inflict slow when interrupting a foe, so it’d run chrono with that trait and to access gravity well, and to complement them, the slow well and the heal well to provide quickness, and chrono runes to capitalise on that, and of course, finally, portal.

It wouldn’t have as much pressure as a necro, but it’d have lots of confusion, torment, and probably slow (interrupt based), it’d still have power block and AoE boon removal albeit less effective than a necro, and the main reason for trying to make it viable: portal. It’d be interesting to see if something like this does get tried and just how effective it can be. I think it’d be more of a stubborn attempt to remain somewhat useful, though.

Edit: A variation would be to run alacrity on wells instead of slow on interrupt. Interruption requires timing, so alacrity on wells is easier, but how effective it’d be is up for debate following its 50% nerf.

Rozbuska.5263:

Good players always find a way how make their classes viable. Suckers just pick new meta class. Man up Helseth and l2p your class under hard conditions.

He’s continued to play mesmer even before the pre-Robert Gee trait revamp when thieves were a hard counter to the class, you really have no idea to tell a guy at his skill level “l2p”.

Perhaps you dont know the history of Mesmer related to sPvP meta, let’s just say the class never been part of meta longer than Engi, Ele, Thief and guardian for the past 3 years.

Kind of jumping the gun on what is dead. Anet has only provided balance previews. They said in Guild Chat that these weren’t all the changes.

I’m looking forward to the 26th, if for the new amulets if nothing else.

Impact.2780:

There is potential for a mesmer to play a bit like a necro, except with daze instead of fear, slow instead of chill, boon removal instead of corrupt, and portal. To keep up with the boon removal it’d need illusions for cd reduction, and scepter for the clone generation. Scepter and illusions are condi-focused, and you can take defensive stats easier with condi damage as well. Scepter also provides a block. It’d need control, so as much cc as it can which means diversion hitting 5 targets, mantra of distraction and gravity well. Shield because it has a block and cc, staff because of the leap in ethereal fields for survival, low cd clone generation, and of course chaos storm for cc. Chrono provides a trait to inflict slow when interrupting a foe, so it’d run chrono with that trait and to access gravity well, and to complement them, the slow well and the heal well to provide quickness, and chrono runes to capitalise on that, and of course, finally, portal.

It wouldn’t have as much pressure as a necro, but it’d have lots of confusion, torment, and probably slow (interrupt based), it’d still have power block and AoE boon removal albeit less effective than a necro, and the main reason for trying to make it viable: portal. It’d be interesting to see if something like this does get tried and just how effective it can be. I think it’d be more of a stubborn attempt to remain somewhat useful, though.

Edit: A variation would be to run alacrity on wells instead of slow on interrupt. Interruption requires timing, so alacrity on wells is easier, but how effective it’d be is up for debate following its 50% nerf.

I just can’t see such a build being viable.
It doesn’t have enough damage to finish a fight quickly so it’s useless as a +1er.
That means, with bunker Mesmer destroyed aswell, the only role left for it would be some kind of bruiser.
But if you take domination, illusions and chronomancer, which are the trait lines that would give mesmers reaper-like abilities, the Mesmer would have very little to 0 condi cleanse, since it doesn’t take inspiration, no stability and almost no protection, since it can’t take chaos.
This leads to the Mesmer being weak to direct damage, cc and condition damage with barely any defense that doesn’t prevent holding a point.
Also remember that you can’t fit dueling into that build, so you won’t have frequent and high access to illusion, which leads to less boon removal and damaging conditions.
And with how scepter is right now, you will barely make any impact on teamfights with it.
The only way left to help support you team in fights is elites, which weren’t enough to keep shatter Mesmer in the meta and alacrity which was nerfed by around 50%.
In the end this just sounds like a roamer with multiple bad matchups that can’t hold a point and will have even less value in teamfights, why would anyone play something like that?

How about
1. Making portal an elite skill
2. Make F5 not affecting elite.

Then we can bring other mesmer personal fight power up to bar.
Current mesmer gameplay is boring as kitten. Completely relies on double elite and portal +1. Useless in all other situations.

Phantaram.4816:

So how is shatter mesmer currently balanced? By being weak outside of those things. Too weak to be used at the moment. The truth is it was too weak before the expansion too but not weak enough that you couldn’t take it and reap the benefits of moa and portal. If the enemy team had anything that could take advantage of the fragility of the mesmer (burn guard, thief, etc) and do it well then the mesmer would get shut down and the 2 powerful utilities it brought wouldn’t even be used.

It’s a tough thing to say but it would probably be healthier for the game if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

Funny – portal and moa being powerful but number of times considered taking mesmer over other class in tournament ….. lacking.

Have you thought about that would look like for mesmer and teefs within the same role? Without those skills teefs would be preferred for its mobility while being able to preform same role. If mesmer were buffed to lower its fragility it would push the teef out by having better survivability. Where exactly would that balance be located at?

Where can I find/see this preview for upcoming skill/trait changes?

Nvm. Found them.

echo.2053:

Phantaram.4816:

So how is shatter mesmer currently balanced? By being weak outside of those things. Too weak to be used at the moment. The truth is it was too weak before the expansion too but not weak enough that you couldn’t take it and reap the benefits of moa and portal. If the enemy team had anything that could take advantage of the fragility of the mesmer (burn guard, thief, etc) and do it well then the mesmer would get shut down and the 2 powerful utilities it brought wouldn’t even be used.

It’s a tough thing to say but it would probably be healthier for the game if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

Funny – portal and moa being powerful but number of times considered taking mesmer over other class in tournament ….. lacking.

Have you thought about that would look like for mesmer and teefs within the same role? Without those skills teefs would be preferred for its mobility while being able to preform same role. If mesmer were buffed to lower its fragility it would push the teef out by having better survivability. Where exactly would that balance be located at?

Sounds like you answered your own question: mesmer could be the less fragile roamer, while thief could be the more mobile roamer.

echo.2053:

Phantaram.4816:

So how is shatter mesmer currently balanced? By being weak outside of those things. Too weak to be used at the moment. The truth is it was too weak before the expansion too but not weak enough that you couldn’t take it and reap the benefits of moa and portal. If the enemy team had anything that could take advantage of the fragility of the mesmer (burn guard, thief, etc) and do it well then the mesmer would get shut down and the 2 powerful utilities it brought wouldn’t even be used.

It’s a tough thing to say but it would probably be healthier for the game if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

Funny – portal and moa being powerful but number of times considered taking mesmer over other class in tournament ….. lacking.

This.

Especially coming from a player that mains a Ele that dominated meta for a long time, he sure has some delusion that those 2 elites really made a difference on the competitive level, before the bunker meta is a thing.

Maxodon.5243:

I just can’t see such a build being viable.
It doesn’t have enough damage to finish a fight quickly so it’s useless as a +1er.
That means, with bunker Mesmer destroyed aswell, the only role left for it would be some kind of bruiser.
But if you take domination, illusions and chronomancer, which are the trait lines that would give mesmers reaper-like abilities, the Mesmer would have very little to 0 condi cleanse, since it doesn’t take inspiration, no stability and almost no protection, since it can’t take chaos.
This leads to the Mesmer being weak to direct damage, cc and condition damage with barely any defense that doesn’t prevent holding a point.
Also remember that you can’t fit dueling into that build, so you won’t have frequent and high access to illusion, which leads to less boon removal and damaging conditions.
And with how scepter is right now, you will barely make any impact on teamfights with it.
The only way left to help support you team in fights is elites, which weren’t enough to keep shatter Mesmer in the meta and alacrity which was nerfed by around 50%.
In the end this just sounds like a roamer with multiple bad matchups that can’t hold a point and will have even less value in teamfights, why would anyone play something like that?

To continue playing their preferred class, of course. People still opt to play warrior instead of power revenant in this meta simply because they prefer it. I don’t know how it would fare for sure because we don’t know all the changes yet. I can say that no stability can be somewhat covered by access to distortion, and condi cleanse would come from the healing well only, leaving them extremely vulnerable to conditions, but it is a team game, and we don’t even know how much condi pressure there will be in the meta when things settle after the patch. Reaper would still be stronger by far in a 1 to 1 comparison for sure, but that doesn’t stop my curious and creative nature from trying to think of possibilities.

rchu.8945:

echo.2053:

Phantaram.4816:

So how is shatter mesmer currently balanced? By being weak outside of those things. Too weak to be used at the moment. The truth is it was too weak before the expansion too but not weak enough that you couldn’t take it and reap the benefits of moa and portal. If the enemy team had anything that could take advantage of the fragility of the mesmer (burn guard, thief, etc) and do it well then the mesmer would get shut down and the 2 powerful utilities it brought wouldn’t even be used.

It’s a tough thing to say but it would probably be healthier for the game if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

Funny - portal and moa being powerful but number of times considered taking mesmer over other class in tournament ..... lacking.

This.

Especially coming from a player that mains a Ele that dominated meta for a long time, he sure has some delusion that those 2 elites really made a difference on the competitive level, before the bunker meta is a thing.

What. Portal and Moa have been used at a competitive level and made a huge difference in the matches. Portal plays bring a lot of flexibility and strategic potential, and Moa countered transformations like rampage and shroud, prevented banner revives, and of course nerfed a tank into a squishy bird to be burst down.

morrolan.9608:

Rome.7124:

Helseth has commented on this reddit thread, see below quote.

LordHelseth:
From my perspective mesmer will be completely unplayable provided that these notes are all the meaningful changes. Similiar to how warrior is in its current state right now, I can’t find a single justified reason to play shatter mesmer in pvp over thief, rev or necro.
Bunker mes is completely dead with quickness rez and alacrity nerf sso shatter is our onl hope. From what I’m theorycrafting shatter will be n such a pitiful state that it wont even be worth playing casually, might aswell reroll thief
It seems to me that arenanet is killing the chrono bunker mesmer because they don’t want ANY iteration of this build in pvp but my question then is what build do they want us to have? Shatter?

One thing that would be great for anet to do is publicize their aims for each class and where they see them so we can at least evaluate the balance changes against their aims.

Thy already did

rchu.8945:

echo.2053:

Phantaram.4816:

So how is shatter mesmer currently balanced? By being weak outside of those things. Too weak to be used at the moment. The truth is it was too weak before the expansion too but not weak enough that you couldn’t take it and reap the benefits of moa and portal. If the enemy team had anything that could take advantage of the fragility of the mesmer (burn guard, thief, etc) and do it well then the mesmer would get shut down and the 2 powerful utilities it brought wouldn’t even be used.

It’s a tough thing to say but it would probably be healthier for the game if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

Funny – portal and moa being powerful but number of times considered taking mesmer over other class in tournament ….. lacking.

This.

Especially coming from a player that mains a Ele that dominated meta for a long time, he sure has some delusion that those 2 elites really made a difference on the competitive level, before the bunker meta is a thing.

Helseth: “These 2 abilities are so strong that the mesmer itself has to be weak to make up for it”

Me: “I agree maybe they could be removed so the mesmer itself could then be buff and thrive as a class like others”

You and some others: “Phantaram is delusional and has it out for mesmers how dare you insult our class!”

Yeah okay.

All paraphrased ofc.

uhohhotdog.3598:

morrolan.9608:

Rome.7124:

Helseth has commented on this reddit thread, see below quote.

LordHelseth:
From my perspective mesmer will be completely unplayable provided that these notes are all the meaningful changes. Similiar to how warrior is in its current state right now, I can’t find a single justified reason to play shatter mesmer in pvp over thief, rev or necro.
Bunker mes is completely dead with quickness rez and alacrity nerf sso shatter is our onl hope. From what I’m theorycrafting shatter will be n such a pitiful state that it wont even be worth playing casually, might aswell reroll thief
It seems to me that arenanet is killing the chrono bunker mesmer because they don’t want ANY iteration of this build in pvp but my question then is what build do they want us to have? Shatter?

One thing that would be great for anet to do is publicize their aims for each class and where they see them so we can at least evaluate the balance changes against their aims.

Thy already did

No they didn’t, 1 or 2 they did talk broadly about but most were just specific statements about this patch.

@Phantaram.4816

First, thanks for the video on d/d ele.. It is one of the better instructional videos I’ve seen for GW2, perhaps the best.

Second. ANET doesn’t understand the concept of quid pro quo. If you ask them to nerf one thing in exchange for another, they’ll double nerf whatever you asked. After all, that’s what the community wanted, right? The problem is that they won’t give anything in return, especially in the case of Mesmers.

For that reason, I tend to really be unhappy when anyone, even a Mesmer, suggests that anything be downgraded on Mesmer.

Perhaps that’s why you got the response you did. ( I didn’t write the response, btw. )

Jackums.3496:

The devs are either incompetent or indifferent when it comes to balancing the Mesmer.

Sometimes I am even wondering if they are not trolling.
So much kittened decision. So poor vision on change they want apply and so blind view on the impacts of what they decide.

Lots of people think this meta was horrible (I do). Let’s prepare to the cancer coming. You will regret what we have now.

Phantaram.4816:

Helseth: “These 2 abilities are so strong that the mesmer itself has to be weak to make up for it”

Me: “I agree maybe they could be removed so the mesmer itself could then be buff and thrive as a class like others”

Thief mobility is so strong that they should not be hurting. But here surprisingly…it has never been a problem to have it top 1v1.

Look, Helseth mains Mesmer. His rantings IMO are just a transparent ploy to protect his beloved, nothing more.

Bunker Mesmer is studiply OP right now in PvP, nerf it into oblivion.

Kicast.1459:

Jackums.3496:

The devs are either incompetent or indifferent when it comes to balancing the Mesmer.

Sometimes I am even wondering if they are not trolling.
So much kittened decision. So poor vision on change they want apply and so blind view on the impacts of what they decide.

Lots of people think this meta was horrible (I do). Let’s prepare to the cancer coming. You will regret what we have now.

I doubt that removing the unkillable bunker meta will promote unhealthy gameplay.

Bunker builds in itself were incredibly lame and unhealthy in its own right. It can only go up hill from here.

I don’t agree. The level of damage and aoe spam hasn’t been changed. Don’t even get me started on the extreme CC. Since survivability is being gutted there won’t be any point whatever in strategy. Welcome back to all zerk all the time.

Yes the “gameplay” such as it is will be extremely unhealthy. The player who manages to get there burst combo off first will win, every time. Look for a lot of 2 second fights.

We’re right back to the days of the berserker meta that anet claimed it wanted to change.

There will no longer be skilled gameplay. Button pressing speed will rule the day

Also look for the near total lack of Mesmer or Ele, because the devs hate them.

-EDIT- Let’s call the upcoming gameplay “Nuke Meta.”